I am currently in charge of the housework and Chazz (doggie) care,

and the occasional babysitting job, so there is really no excuse for me not to be more proficient in the kitchen.  My husband would call me when he’s on his way home, and ask me to get dinner started.  And it’s not like I don’t start to do anything, I would start to get the kitchen ready.  While cleaning off the counter or washing a pot, I may get distracted and wash off the strawberries, or the weather report may come on the television (and we ALL know how distracted I get around Doug Kammerer, a local news weatherman)

and find myself sitting in front of the TV for a few minutes, and my husband would walk right in the door.  Of course he would laugh and make a comment about the dinner that I was supposed to have started.  I would just tell him that I was cleaning the kitchen before getting started on dinner, which is true…

When my husband would get home, things would get a little better and I would stay on task, but still get distracted.  “Tonight I want to actually cook,” get the chicken out,  the skillet and the pot.   While getting the rice out of the pantry, my planner may catch my eye, and then I would get in front of my open laptop, that’s just right on the table overlooking the kitchen.  Then I would grab a book that my friend just gave me and I would think, I really should finish reading this book before I write my story in my memoir.  After all, she DID give me the book with the intention of giving me an example of how to write my story.  I would watch as my husband started to cook.  Then I will snap back into the dinner frame of thinking, and grab the butter for the rice.

One day, we were going to make a pizza on the pizza stone, one of our favorite date night things to do together and I chose to pat out the dough myself.  No, I do not need help; no, i do not need you to take over, it only takes me over an hour to get it straight because I never get the opportunity to try and actually do it!

On the days that I would actually start dinner before he got home, I always cook the chicken not to his specifications, on too high heat and making the chicken too brown for his taste. He stands right behind me, telling me how to do things better.  I do not need anybody standing behind me telling me how to cook it better;  If I am ever going to learn, I need to learn it for myself, sure it may mean a few things are overdone; it may take me a mistake or two to happen at first, or a little longer  but I can do it, it just may take me a little bit more time than a person [ahem, my husband].  Maybe if I had a little more practice at cooking, I could cook more and make the dinner better.  But then comes in my attention problem.

It has been 20 years since my car accident and resulting traumatic brain injury, but I still have severe attention problems, and will always have these problems.  Even 10 years after my car accident when I still lived at home with my parents, I would get halfway emptying the dishwasher, and then find my mom reloading it with dirty dishes.  “Hey, that was clean!” I would say, while she responded, “Well, its dirty now.”

8 years afterwards when I began working at Fairfax Nursing Center as an activities assistant, I would start recording the attendance, then get into a discussion with a coworker about a resident, or I would start organizing the music CDs that we listened to over the loud speakers that played down the halls.  I still get so distracted by whichever task I begin and attempt at completing.

My issues were much more evident when I returned to high school right after my car accident.  The extent of my learning disabilities was being evaluated by the learning aides at my high school.  The aides evaluated me intensely while helping me to learn compensatory tactics that I could use in completing my education, and later progressing on to college.  And of course, all the help I received from the Longwood University Academic Support Center helped me thrive, as you can read in this blog post.

Today, I am so incredibly THANKFUL for all the academic help that I have recieved in both high school and college.